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Chaosium is pleased to announce the release of the Basic Roleplaying System Reference Document (SRD).

The Basic Roleplaying SRD is based on Basic Roleplaying, the simple, fast, and elegant skill-based percentile system that is the core of most Chaosium roleplaying games, includingCall of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, SuperWorld, and others.

Under the provisions of the Basic Roleplaying Open Game License (OGL), designers can create their own roleplaying games using the Basic Roleplaying rules engine, royalty-free and without further permission from Chaosium Inc.

I get that Chaosium wants to avoid "retroclones" of its old or current games using its own Open Content. But if "substantially similar" is basically anything Chaosium decides it doesn't like the look of, publishers and fans might look to OpenQuest ... or write their own rules from scratch.

P.S. "... and all works related to Le Morte d’Arthur"? So anything Arthurian is off limits? (EDIT: By which I mean something like Merlin or Morgan le Fay or the Grail in another era.)

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One thing I notice is that it has no Hit Locations. Are we OK to include Hit Locations from the older Basic Roleplaying Rules or are Hit Locations too much like Runequest?

Well, they are not _currently_ listed as Prohibited Content...

This is the issue. A someone who regularly re-skins something close to MW / BGB BRP for wildly different settings / feels, often using tweaks of "base" features... Can I use Skill Categories? Magic World Style Weapon Groups? Can I refer to "Power Points" as "mana points" and have a spell system similar to Magic World / BGB Sorcery? What about redoing my Ulfland setting (which uses hit locations and has two spell casting systems derived from the BGB). Or do I have to laboriously recreate all those mechanisms and spells with different wording and mechanics to NOT count as Prohibited Content... and if I do, why wouldn't I just use a less restricted SRD / OGL or just write my own D100 roll under, roll low game?

This is so limited, and so hedged with restrictions, it seems rather pointless? I appreciate Chaosium needs to protect its own IP (and that of its licensees), but the concept of an OGL / SRD is to provide a framework to let 3rd parties innovate and publish derivative support material that isn't viable for the source publisher because of the economics.

I was hoping for a method of supporting the "BRP derived from the BGB, Magic World, Superworld and Worlds of Wonder" games (mechanically if not in terms of specific IP) that many of us play & run similar to what we once had in the monograph program, but less of a head ache for Chaosuium. This... is not that, at least at first inspection.

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This is the issue. A someone who regularly re-skins something close to MW / BGB BRP for wildly different settings / feels, often using tweaks of "base" features... Can I use Skill Categories? Magic World Style Weapon Groups? Can I refer to "Power Points" as "mana points" and have a spell system similar to Magic World / BGB Sorcery? What about redoing my Ulfland setting (which uses hit locations and has two spell casting systems derived from the BGB). Or do I have to laboriously recreate all those mechanisms and spells with different wording and mechanics to NOT count as Prohibited Content... and if I do, why wouldn't I just use a less restricted SRD / OGL or just write my own D100 roll under, roll low game?

This is so limited, and so hedged with restrictions, it seems rather pointless? I appreciate Chaosium needs to protect its own IP (and that of its licensees), but the concept of an OGL / SRD is to provide a framework to let 3rd parties innovate and publish derivative support material that isn't viable for the source publisher because of the economics.

I was hoping for a method of supporting the "BRP derived from the BGB, Magic World, Superworld and Worlds of Wonder" games (mechanically if not in terms of specific IP) that many of us play & run similar to what we once had in the monograph program, but less of a head ache for Chaosuium. This... is not that, at least at first inspection.

Ah well.

If it is not Prohibited Content then you are free to create your own derivative work. It isn't particularly limited unless you are trying to reskin RQG, Cthulhu, or Pendragon.

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This is so limited, and so hedged with restrictions, it seems rather pointless? I appreciate Chaosium needs to protect its own IP (and that of its licensees), but the concept of an OGL / SRD is to provide a framework to let 3rd parties innovate and publish derivative support material that isn't viable for the source publisher because of the economics

I concur. Yet:

I get the necessity for Chaosium to shield themselves from someone doing a „Holler of Hastur“ rule book, using the BRP OGL without ever having to check back with them, and adding rules that mimic CoC in all but name.

On the other hand, there isn’t much left that Greg Stafford already did back in the 70‘s.

Overall, I think opening BRP to the general public with an OGL is both a great and the right move for Chaosium to do, and I applaud them for it. In the long run, it will help to grow and sustain an ecosystem around BRP, getting more players in contact with it (who will in turn come to find Chaosium’s other setting rule sets hauntingly familiar).

Think of someone doing something like Beyond the Wall for younger players, but with proper rules...

The SRD is barebones. From the top of my head, I’d add Hit Locations and Crit rules (5% of skill value).

No word about the creation of characters, either. Intentionally or due to time restrictions?

The term “substantially similar” to define what game mechanics are and what aren’t “Prohibited Content” as per Section 1(e) of the OGL may prove to be too vaguely coined, and thus act as a deterrent to some.

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I find it odd that APP has crept back in, after CHA replaced it again in RQG. If they wanted to be like CoC, then it doesn't make sense as the Core Charateristics in CoC 7E are % now, not the traditional 3D6 stats.

And it looks like there are things like Agility Rolls and such, when we can just use the Resistance Table for things like that.

I guess it is pretty much like a slim BGB. Having a current generic ruleset for BRP is a good thing however, so let's see what comes from this...😎

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I think it's good, in part because it shows effort from Chaosium to recognize that such content is valuable. My hope is that this expands over time and doesn't shrink. It starts the conversation and shows what Chaosium has no issue with and what will tick them off. That's all a license really does.

I'm grateful that we've started the conversation. Other game publishers and game systems would be wise to take notice.

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This looks well and good enough, though I do have some similar concerns to others about prohibited content, namely Augments and Pushing. Why are these prohibited? They aren't defining features of the games they belong to, and would hugely benefit any BRP game, yet creators who want to do similar things are now forced to come up with less logical, unique ways. This is especially frustrating to me, since I'd already written them into a project I was working on.

Just don't try to create a retroclone of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, Pendragon, etc.

No offence intended Jeff, but compared to practically every other SRD since the original d20 SRD in 2000, this is more like a fragment of jawbone with a couple of teeth rather than an actual skeleton!

To do anything of substance with this requires far more work than with any other D100 OGL game. Unless we can legitimately reference the BGB from a compliant product? I had read it to mean that was NOT the case, and that one can only quote / reference the SRD itself or Open Content from other BRP OGL compliant products?

Also, I assume other Open Licenses are effectively off limits? So we cant co-opt material from say Monsters of Legends, any more than we could use creatures stats from the BGB? So we have to each come up with our own Goblins or whatever until someone decides to write a BRP OGL bestiary?